


Two

by pushypossum



Category: Persona 3, Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 13:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20706698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushypossum/pseuds/pushypossum
Summary: Because the hardest thing is never to repent for someone else, it's letting people in.





	Two

Yu laid Minato down. 

The slow buzzing of the overhead lights filled the room with a faint hum. Minato was frail, light, and placing him on the bed seemed to result in no discernible change to the bed’s structure. He may as well have not even been there at all. Yu pulled the sterile white sheets up to Minato’s chin - Minato did not move an inch or attempt to assist. He kept his eyes shut, face unreadable with his long bangs plastered with sweat and partially obscuring his expression. Yu attached the IVs to Minato’s arms, recorded his vitals, and left without a word. 

He was beginning to grow used to this. Since beginning work at the hospice facility a few months ago, he had seen his fair share of different end-of-life patients. Some were surrounded by family, having lived to an old age and seemed ready to accept their death. Others came in tragically young and scared, the harder patients to deal with. Teachers and guardians have told Yu since a young age that his good-hearted nature and desire to help others would lend itself well to the medical profession, leading Yu down this path. And for the most part, Yu had felt satisfied with this choice - from the older folks who simply needed a guiding hand to lead them during these final days to the lost young people who needed empathy and a listening ear, he knew what to provide and what to say.

But then there was Minato. In theory, Minato fit into the second camp - he was only 19. He had no family to speak of. But he showed none of the other trademark signs of someone unprepared to lose their life this early. He went through each day with a sort of dreamy dis-attachment that Yu could barely comprehend. For all intents and purposes, he may as well have already been dead. But Yu wanted to help him.

—————————————————

Minato dreamed. 

He dreamed of young boys in striped shirts and blue rooms. For as long as he can remember, he knew he would die young and slowly with the methodological and calculated precision of a needle searing through the heart. At the age of 10, the young boy in his dreams told him his parents were to die in a car crash. Sure enough, the following day his parents were t-boned at an intersection by a truck barreling 20 kilometers over the speed limit through a red light. He didn’t see the accident, but he nonetheless fabricated a compelling mental image of how it must have gone down and played it in his head every night. Blood. Tires squealing. Screams. Crash. So it goes. The boy in the striped shirt said it was unavoidable, but Minato couldn’t help but wonder whether he was simply a cog in a much larger machine.

At the age of 16, the people in the blue room began to speak to him in hurried whispers. The velvet upholstery of the chair he sat in scratched his palms. The large oak table the man with the large nose sat at dwarfed him. The girl in the corner gave a coy smile. The whispers were nearly unintelligible but their meaning to him was irrelevant. He knew what was coming. The boy in the striped shirt returned - “memento mori, memento mori, memento mori”. The words kept spinning in his head until he could no longer hear.

At the age of 18, it happened. He awoke with his heart beating so much faster than it should. His blood felt as though it was burning from the inside and trying to escape through the ends of his fingers and mouth. He leaned over the bed and gave a wretched heave but nothing came out. The sensation would not stop and for the first time in his life, Minato truly felt fear. He shut his eyes and the blue room emerged. The girl was no longer smiling. The man with the long nose furrowed his brows and tilted his head inquisitively - “I see this is your fate - I am sorry we couldn’t have helped. You are merely trapped in the amber of this moment. You will find better times.”

When Minato came to, he was in the hospital. The doctors said things. The nurses said more things. It may as well have been verbalized horseshit to Minato. He knew straight where he was going.

And when he met Yu in the hospice ward, he felt nothing at all. 

—————————————————

Upon the end of Yu’s second visit of the day, Yu sat on Minato’s bedside. Yu had been assigned to Minato for 3 weeks now, but this was the first time he went off-script and attempted to break through Minato’s inscrutable facade. The tubes in Minato’s arms were pumping him with morphine to help with the pain. It was unclear to Yu how present Minato was and his blank facial expression was providing no hints.

“I, I wanted to talk with you, Minato, is that alright?” It was uncharacteristic of Yu to stumble through a sentence like that, but something about Minato’s bleak aura put Yu on edge. Through his training, he was instructed on how to deal with many types of patients at the ends of their lives, but translating those lessons to Minato and his impassiveness was easier said than done. Nonetheless, Minato did not move. The faint buzz of the lights continued singing their song.

“I had a cousin growing up. I visited her once every couple years when my parents allowed me to see my uncle and her. Her name was Nanako and I loved her very much. One day she got very sick… The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I stayed by her side every night as she fearlessly fought whatever was ailing her. She-she didn’t make it, though.” 

Minato turned, for the first time, and looked up at Yu to truly see him. His face was flush and eyes wide - he looked almost wild, as though he was back in his cousin’s hospital room and he was pleading with someone to save her.

“A-anyways, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I-I just wanted to talk to you. I’ll be going now.” Yu ruffled his gloved hand through his bowl cut in a vain attempt to compose himself, and made for the door - shoes squeaking on the linoleum.

“Wait.” Yu stopped. “I’m sorry to hear about your cousin. Thank you for sharing with me.” Minato’s voice was paper thin but carried thru the room's hum with striking clarity.

Something hot and wet trickled down Yu’s cheek. Another. And one more.

“Of course, Minato. Have a nice day.” And with that, he left.

—————————————————

Minato dreamed in blues and yellows today. Since entering the hospice ward, his thoughts were further dulled from the concoction of drugs the doctor’s had him on. He didn’t really mind, as he had never really minded the systems put in place to move him through life with the minimal amount of effort possible to emerge on the end.

In his dreams, for the first time, he saw Yu, his affable nurse. Nurse Yu, it almost worked in his head. Yu was shrouded in a yellow glow - here comes the sun, doo doo doo doo. Or it could go "Yu Yu Yu Yu", Minato thought, with a hazy sense of amusement. He snapped out of his stupor - why was he making puns out of classic Beatles songs for this nearly insignificant person?

Growing more conscious, he thought back on their interaction yesterday (or was it two days ago? Time had begun to lose all relevance) when Yu had, with no invitation, divulged the traumatic story of his cousin. Minato found this behavior puzzling but also intriguing. Surely there were other patients in the ward who would be more receptive and sympathetic to Yu’s needs, no? Minato had never truly known friendship so he was not trained for this sort of interaction. The blue people told him he was supposed to have 9 close friends but, perhaps due to his own failings, he never saw this through.

He closed his eyes, willing the blue people to return so he could ask about his lost comrades, but no one came.

Minato only stirred again upon hearing a rapt on the door.

“Good evening, Minato.” Yu said, voice soft. “I brought you dinner and I will also be giving you your evening pills.”

“… Okay.”

Yu, once again, sat on the end of Minato’s bed and placed the tray on Minato’s lap.

“The dinner this evening is beef curry with rice. Would you like me to feed you?” Minato gave a non-committal grunt which Yu took as an invitation to spoon some of the food into Minato’s mouth.

“Minato… What did you enjoy, growing up?” Yu asked. His head was tilted slightly with his free hand resting gently on his chin, as though he was thinking through a complicated math problem. Minato’s grip on his sheets instinctively tightened as he choked down the slimy grease of the curry. He had the urge to gag.

“What does it matter, Narukami.”

“I was just curious, I’m sorry if I’m prying too much…” Yu swallowed. "When I was young, I liked to skip rocks along the river. Did you do anything like that?”

Minato had to give him credit for his dogged determination. Just what did he want?

“I listened to music.”

Yu’s previously slightly nervous expression softened. “Oh, really? What kinds of music?”

“You wouldn’t know. Now, don’t you have other patients to attend to?” Yu gave a small snort at Minato’s dismissive response, recalling the hip kids in his nursing classes who would sneer that Yu could’ve never heard of such “hip” bands as the Arctic Monkeys or Animal Collective. Perhaps Minato considered himself a music elitist.

“I need to give you your medicine before I leave. Are you ready?” Minato gave a small nod. The rush of relief that flowed thru his body was overpowering. The burning at his fingertips, the restlessness of his body, the aches he hadn’t even realized he had all seemed to melt away into a faint buzz of serenity. He didn’t even notice Yu’s quiet departure from the room or the boy in the striped shirt standing at the edge of his bed, watching, waiting, listening.

“I think you will really like him,” the boy whispered.

“I think so too,” Minato said or thought or dreamed.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll add another chapter someday! This work is very much inspired by The Antlers' 2009 album "Hospice" - if you enjoy this work at all, please take a listen.


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